This is why the Orthodox Churches have a reserved attitude towards those who come to us and ask to be received, simply because they are unhappy with their present situation. Thus, in 1995, when a group of about ten Anglican clergy and some 200 followers asked to be received automatically into the Orthodox Church on account of the Anglican ordination of women and that the clergy be automatically ordained as Orthodox priests, they were refused by both the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches in this country. Why?

Both Orthodox Churches felt that the reason for wishing to join the Church was negative. For example, their request could have been out of misogyny or clericalism, rather than for Biblical and theological reasons. Certainly many Orthodox found this all strange, when, after all, the doctrine of the Church of England had largely been dictated to it by a woman and the then head of the Church of England was a woman, the namesake of the first, and had been its head for over 40 years at that time. In order to join the Orthodox Church, first you have to love Orthodoxy. And love for Orthodoxy is proved by waiting, being prepared, being trained. And although another Orthodox bishop did later receive those Anglicans as a separate ex-Anglican grouping, the point had been made.

EXCELLENT point!

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It is our belief that most of the understandably distressed people who are moving from the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion to Roman Catholicism are making the right move for themselves. (However, we also believe that their move and the ordination of married men, former Anglican clergy, as Roman Catholic priests will cause great problems for Catholicism itself, given its obligatory celibacy for its priests).

I also think that Anglicanorum Coetibus is going to fall upon the rocks of Sacerdotalis coelibatus. It is just a matter of time.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth